July 2011 short story sales

Read the previous months here.

Wow.  July was rough month sales-wise.  This is my first summer season where I've had stories up for sale.  I've talked to some other more established novel writing authors and they said it's usually pretty common for their monthly sales to drop as much as 30% in the summer months.

30% ?!?

For someone with measly sales like mine a 30% drop takes me to almost zero!  I guess people are less inclined to read in the summer and more interested in going outside to enjoy the weather.  Barbarians.

Anyway... here are my spectacular under 10k short story numbers for July:

Amazon (US/UK/DE):
         # of works:  13
         # of sales:  5

B&N
        # of works:  13
        # of sales:  3


One interesting thing to note:  3 of my 5 Amazon sales were for my shortest standalone short story.  The Sacrifice clocks in at a mere 1,000 words.  It has also been out the longest.  Is this significant?!  Who knows?

Comments

  1. Robert CollinsAugust 3, 2011 at 5:43 AM

    As of last month I had 4 short stories for sale at Amazon & Smashwords. I sold my first at Amazon last month; no sales at Smashwords.

    I also have two shorts free at SW. I has become my second-most downloaded/sampled ebook there (101). The second is in fifth place with 78, far ahead of sixth (my second collection) with 28. The numbers increase by 1 to 3 each week. Hasn't moved ebooks; maybe I am getting readers...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alain GomezAugust 3, 2011 at 11:16 AM

    Oooo... I may have to start listing Smashwords soon. I FINALLY did the premium catalog thing last month. So when Smashwords updated, I saw that I actually did sell a copy of my novella in the Apple store.

    We'll see if the short stories pick up in the Apple store. But because of their reporting there will be a month delay.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Alain GomezAugust 3, 2011 at 11:17 AM

    By last month I mean June. Crikey, we're on August already...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review of "Ferryman" by Nigel Edwards

Summary: "A mythology grew up around the Ferrymen, fostered by a mystique which they wrapped around themselves. Some thought them amoral servants of a ruling elite, sanctioned to undertake work beyond legitimate resolution; others with more fanciful imaginations – or who were more devout, depending on your point of view – believed them emissaries of Evil, with a capital E." Could the Ferrymen become real in your lifetime? Should they? Read this thoughtful and disturbing near-future science fiction story and decide for yourself. Review: This was a fantastic short story.  "Well-written" doesn't even begin to describe Ferryman ; it's engrossing.  The simple, clean style perfectly highlights our precise  protagonist.  If this future Edwards presents to us does in fact become a reality, the character he describes is exactly the type of person who would become a Ferryman: highly competent with the hint of a god complex. What's  especially clever abou
Read more

Interview with Author Hugh Howey

Welcome to Book Brouhaha! Why don't you start out by introducing yourself and telling us a little about "Wool." Thanks for having me, Alain! I suppose I'm just this normal guy who just wrote a little story called Wool. It's about a group of people who live underground. When their society turns on itself, it threatens all of mankind. In a way, it poses the conundrum of every revolution: How do you destroy an unjust social structure without the collateral damage being worse than the injustices were? I suppose the most interesting thing about me, personally, is that I lived on a sailboat while I was in college. This led to a career as a yacht captain, which sent me all over the Caribbean and the East Coast. I didn't start writing in earnest until my wife dragged me away from the sea and into the mountains. I've always loved the short form. I've been told that it isn't as marketable, even though science fiction has a long and glorious history of c
Read more

Ignorance is.... bliss?

I recently received a review of Celebrity Space that kind of embodies what I've been saying for a long time is the biggest issue for short story writers: ignorance. Here's the review: "Ok I read it. It isn't much of a story, I'm not even sure what happened. Maybe as an outline for a story twice or even 3X as long it wound be good. i don't think you can write a good story this short" It's a two star review.  It's neither the first two star review I've received nor the harshest.  The first part is just him saying he didn't care for it.  I'm fine with that.  What bothers me about this review is the last line.  It basically says it didn't matter what words I had written on the page.  The reviewer didn't care for the story because there weren't enough of them. Maybe this guy is a reading connoisseur and has read hundreds of short stories to finally come to this opinion.  But I doubt it.  I think he would be shocked if
Read more